Electives for An Aspiring Pathologist?

What electives would you residents recommend me taking that will give me a good foundation for residency? I'm taking a general path elective soon...have some room for one or two more electives? Surgical path, cytopath, psychopath(jk)?

I took electives that I wouldn't otherwise experience while doing Pathology (for example, Emergency Med or some other primary care) as well as Oncology. I did do a Forensics rotation, but I was totally interested (that and the alternative was SICU with q3 call ). Anything else I figured I'd see in residency.

Just do what you are interested in. It won't matter much which one you do. Almost every field has something that will apply to and be somewhat relevant to what pathologists do (except psych and possibly pediatrics).

For clinical electives, I thought Hem/Onc (oupatient clinic only) and radiation oncology were very helpful. They pinpointed things that they look for from Pathology that help them manage their patients that I wasn't keenly aware that they paid much attention to in the reports (aside from the basics: is it cancer? what kind? how big? is it all out?). If you want to work yourself to death, surgical oncology would be a good one. Derm clinic is also a good place to see some pathology (the private practice derm guy I was with would sit there with me and talk pathology, show me slides, etc). I think that those are the biggies.

Besides path rotations, I recommend Heme/Onc, Derm, GynOnc, GI, and just about any surgical subspecialty rotation other than maybe cardiac/vascular. If you are really into the micro side of CP (barf), ID would obviously be a good rotation.

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